SOCIAL JUSTICE EVANGELICAL

Jimmy Carter's landmark moment: 

The birth of the disability rights movement

Matthew Rozsa, Salon
May 01, 2022

Former US President Jimmy Carter 

(AFP Photo/Kena Betancur)

Standing up could be intensely painful for Franklin D. Roosevelt, but he was determined that the public would never know.

Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down in 1921 — it's not clear whether that was caused by polio or Guillain–Barré syndrome — and went to great lengths to conceal his disability. Aside from his inner circle of confidants and journalists who covered his political career, few Americans ever understood that FDR, who became the longest-serving president in our history, could not stand or walk unaided. He stood upright only with clunky, awkward braces that placed constant pressure on his abdomen. Yet he bore this burden silently, and when necessary went above and beyond the non-disabled people around him.

This article first appeared in Salon.

One incident stands out: A moment during the 1932 presidential when Roosevelt remained standing during an unexpected rainstorm, even as everyone around him ran for cover. This was more than showmanship, although it certainly helped his public image as he campaigned to defeat President Herbert Hoover that year. Roosevelt, at the time governor of New York, also remained standing in order to doff his hat to every National Guard platoon commander who passed him on parade. More than a quarter-century later, a Hungarian Jewish immigrant who was a corporal in the 71st Infantry at the time wrote a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt recalling what he had observed (the former First Lady replied with gratitude):

I noticed that all of the occupants in the car had covered their heads or were endeavoring to ward off the rain, but there stood President Roosevelt, hat over his heart, the rain beating down over him, never flinching, every inch a man. This was an example of military, moral and spiritual courage. I have never forgotten it.

That infantry corporal almost certainly didn't know that Roosevelt had a significant disability, and was essentially standing there locked in place. Disabled people throughout history have had to make those kinds of sacrifices, or cover up their limitations even at risk of pain or injury, simply to function in society.

RELATED: "Autism is not a disease — it's a disability": Journalist Eric Garcia debunks autism myths

Roosevelt's suffering was not for nothing. Among other things, he founded a comprehensive disability treatment facility in Warm Springs, Georgia, which today is named for him. Over the years, Warm Springs has become a political mecca for aspiring public officials and others who wish to express support for the disability rights movement. When another Democrat, Jimmy Carter, decided to establish himself as a supporter of disability rights during the 1976 presidential election, he visited Warm Springs to make that promise. After he was elected president, however, Carter often struggled to implement key parts of his agenda, and disability rights was no exception. So disabled people had to step in to do the work that the non-disabled simply couldn't get done on their own.

Prior to Carter's presidency, disability activists had struggled to convince government officials to take their concerns seriously. When Congress in the early 1970s passed a law to expand states' abilities to provide comprehensive vocational rehabilitation services, a staffer at what was then called the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) added a few sentences protecting disabled individuals from discrimination. No one expected that to be controversial; it was worded to resemble the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and merely merely extending that bill's logic and language to another marginalized group. Yet this provision, known as Section 504, would become the cornerstone of a massive controversy and an entire movement. It stated that any entity that received federal funding could not discriminate against disabled people, at risk of losing that funding.

Richard Nixon and his successor, Gerald Ford, weren't especially sympathetic to Section 504, and supported the arguments of business advocates who claimed it was unenforceable and overly expensive. At first Republicans wanted to kill the bill entirely, with Nixon vetoing two versions, in 1972 and 1973, because he thought the Section 504 language was too strong. After the first veto, a group of 80 disability activists in New York, many in wheelchairs, protested by stopping traffic on Madison Avenue. Eventually there was enough pressure from Democrats (who controlled Congress at the time) to compel Nixon to sign the law, but both he and Ford delayed implementing it. Even after a judge ordered the Republican administration to cease "unreasonable delays," regulations needed to implement the law remained unsigned through the end of Ford's tenure.

Activists were heartened when Carter took office because, starting with his visit to Warm Springs in 1976, he had cast himself as their ally. While Carter's heart was in the right place, he often waffled when it came to following through on his goals — not a problem of intention, perhaps, but conceivably one of competence. Carter wound up passing the buck on Section 504 to his new HEW head, Joseph Califano, formed a task force on the issue — that included no people with disabilities.

Around that time, activist and advocacy groups run by people with disabilities were emerging, and a number merged into the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities. The coalition found out that Califano's task force was likely to weaken the regulations needed to be implemented Section 504, in an effort to strike a compromise with the business community. So the ACCD told the Carter administration it would launch a series of protest actions if the existing regulations weren't signed unchanged.

"I think this was brilliant, because rather than waiting until watered-down regulations were issued publicly and then responding, issue by issue, this meant the government would have to respond to the demonstrators," wrote Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund activist Kitty Cone, who participated in the protests. "Additionally, it was not that easy to organize people, particularly people with physical disabilities, in those days, due to lack of transit, support services and so on. A sit-in meant people would go and stay, until the issue was resolved definitively."

So began the 504 sit-ins, in which activists organized by the ACCD either occupied or picketed HEW offices in Washington, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Seattle. Like Roosevelt forcing his body to remain standing in the rain, the protesters willingly underwent physical and emotional pain because they believed they were doing so for a just cause. The most notable protest was a San Francisco sit-in that lasted more than three weeks. One of the organizers, activist Judith Heumann, recalled that "at the start of our demonstration at the HEW offices, officials treated us with condescension, giving us cookies and punch as if we were on some kind of field trip."

Once authorities realized that the protesters really weren't going to go home, the magnitude of the moment became clear. This was a highly diverse group of people with different kinds of disabilities: injured Vietnam veterans, lifetime wheelchair users, deaf people, blind people, individuals with mental disabilities. Asking the cops to roust them out of the building would have been terrible optics. Carter's administration was in a bind. More important still, this was effectively the first moment that Americans in general were compelled to confront their condescension and lack of comprehension when it came to disabled individuals. Cookies and punch weren't going to cut it.

As one activist later recalled, "discomfort and anxiety was the order of our day to day existence. Everyone faced these questions, How can I get my meds? Where will I sleep? What about food?" People lost their sense of privacy as they performed intimate personal care in close proximity to strangers. Two protesters suffered long-term exacerbation of their multiple sclerosis symptoms because of going for a prolonged period without treatment. People had to live without catheters, back-up ventilators and medicines. The food problem was mitigated for one reason: Black Panthers stepped in and made sure the protesters, at the very least, would not starve.

It worked — and to a greater degree than most activists expected. In the most immediate triumph, the Section 504 regulations were signed intact on April 28, 1977. From that moment on, the climate around disability in America was forever transformed: No longer could an employer fire a disabled person just because having them around was too much trouble, or made others uncomfortable. While the stereotype of disabled people as helpless is still with us, the Section 504 protesters demonstrated that they could fight for their rights just like anyone else. Furthermore, they accomplished that by establishing an alliance based on the premise everyone with a disability was in the same boat, regardless of the specifics. Finally, Section 504 laid the foundations for the landmark bill that would arrive more than a decade later, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

I am an autistic person with a hand-eye coordination disability, and am among the millions of beneficiaries of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and by extension of Section 504. I am also the grandson of the Hungarian Jewish immigrant who saw Franklin D. Roosevelt standing through that rainstorm, and was so impressed awed in 1932 when he witnessed Roosevelt's inspiring act of physical sacrifice during that rainstorm. I never met Laszlo Rozsa, who died three years before I was born. I know he was head of the proof room at the New York Times, working the "lobster shift" and continuing the family tradition of newspaper jobs that began with his father, a Budapest printer named Mores Rozsa. Laszlo's only child, Lance Rozsa, worked in education rather than journalism (he became a school superintendent in New Jersey). My passion is for both: I'm a PhD candidate in history at Lehigh University and I've been a journalist for 10 years (and a staff writer at Salon for six).

When I interviewed Jimmy Carter in 2018, I thanked him for his support of Section 504 and for what he had done for the disability community. When I asked him what advice he had for younger Americans today, he responded: "Never give up, and follow the advice of my school teacher: 'We must accommodate changing times but cling to principles that do not change.'"

 

The Vulnerabilities of the Pacific People with Disability in the midst of a Climate Crisis

By Belyndar Maonia Rikimani

2 May 2022 at 15:51

Government, NGOs and other actors need to recognise the barriers faced by people living with disabilities in the midst of a Climate Crisis, writes the author

People are helping a person with disability to cross over a flooding river in a community in Solomon Islands.

Opinion by Belyndar Maonia Rikimani

While the conversation on the impact of climate change globally and here in the Pacific tend to focus more on the vulnerabilities of Pacific communities in the events of slow onset and extreme events of the climate crisis, there has been very little attention given to listening to the men, women, girls and children living with disabilities in our communities.

People living with disabilities are very vulnerable even before a disaster hits or a climate rapid onset occurs. Therefore, governments, non-governmental organisations and other actors in this space need to recognise the specific needs of this ‘at risk’ population to ensure they are not forgotten or left behind before, during and after a disaster.

The United Nations defines vulnerable groups as “populations that live in poverty without access to safe housing, water, sanitation and nutrition and those who are stigmatized, discriminated against, marginalized by society and even criminalized in law, policy and practice. These populations may struggle to fulfil their human rights, including their rights to access health and social services. They live in environments of inequality where they are unable to thrive, feel safe and actively participate in all aspects of society.”

In times of a natural crisis, there is a higher risk that people living with disabilities are not only vulnerable to issues of violence or abandonment but are also faced with the difficulties to access basic needs and services like food, water, sanitation and health care services.

In Vanuatu, the government with its development partners have set up a partnership with the Society of People with Disability and Disabled Peoples Advocacy Association to work through these issues to reduce the barriers faced by people living with disabilities there. They’ve established a hub or one-stop centre where people living with disabilities can access information and resources that can empower them to participate fully in community life.

Stephanie Stephens who is the climate campaign manager at Save the Children Vanuatu said when people living with disabilities suffer from the impact of climate change, it increases their vulnerabilities and deprive them of their rights.

“People living with disabilities are one of the groups that are very vulnerable professionally, mentally, socially and physically adverse events in their communities. It’s very important that these groups of vulnerable people are prioritised in community settings to ensure their needs, health and safety are well looked after.

“When the weather becomes worse, people with disabilities are likely to move out from their homes and relocate to evacuation centres or a home of a relative, depriving them of their privacy. People living with disabilities, especially those that are using wheelchairs are denied basic needs like access to the nearest shop or a healthcare facility.

Naomi Tai and Melvina Voua, two passionate young women leading the office of People with Disability in the Solomon Islands identified with the challenges faced by people living with disabilities in neighbouring Vanuatu.

In the Solomon Islands, people with disabilities have faced heightened protection and barriers to inclusion and are likely to have specific and additional needs related to the context of disasters and climate change.

“The Mamana Water Ren Lau Community is located at the mouth of the Mataniko River, in Central Honiara and people living in that community are faced with severe coastal erosion due to sea level rise and flash flooding on rainy seasons. Many people residing in that community have lost their homes, have no access to clean water, safe environment and food security. People living with disabilities in that community have been very vulnerable to the changes posed by climate change.

“There is a high risk of forced displacement in some communities in Solomon Islands due to the intensity of the extreme weather changes such as cyclones, droughts and environmental degradation that have impacted the livelihood and survival of people living with disabilities, according to Tai and Voua.

There needs to be a thorough feasibility study on identifying the different types of impairments that people with disabilities need and include them in the country’s adaptation and mitigation plans. That conversation needs to start between government, NGOs and communities to raise the specific needs of vulnerable groups. The inclusive dialogue and consultation with people with disability and disability organisations and stakeholders needs to evolve into actions and policies that reflect our governments commitments not to leave anyone behind!

About the Author:

Belyndar Maonia Rikimani is a Climate Activist and a One Young World Ambassador from Solomon Islands. She is a Final Year Law student at the University of the South Pacific and is a member of the Pacific Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).

Cardinal Czerny: Sustainable development must put solidarity and human rights first

Apr 28, 2022

by Brian Roewe

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Cardinal Michael Czerny looks on as Pope Francis delivers his Easter message and blessing "urbi et orbi" (to the city and the world) from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican April 17. The pope has named Cardinal Czerny as the new prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. (CNS/Paul Haring)

A true system of global sustainable development hinges on recognizing others as siblings in a shared world whose dignity and rights must take precedence over corporate interests, said a top Vatican official this week.

As new economic models emerge and the world increasingly becomes a global marketplace, seeing one another as siblings is essential to upholding the human rights of all, said Cardinal Michael Czerny, the recently appointed head of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

But viewing that human fraternity through a lens of individual liberties "threatens the universality of human rights," he said. "The same is true of the absolute and unquestionable freedom of the market: the rights of commercial enterprises cannot be put before the dignity of the poor or the care of the environment.

"The right to human development cannot be subjected to any calculation of profit, nor to any claim of social utility, which ends up justifying the option to leave the weaker or less gifted behind," he added.

Czerny made the remarks April 26 during a virtual conference co-hosted by two Canadian universities. The speech was one of the first Czerny delivered in his new role after Pope Francis removed the interim tag from his title three days earlier.

The speech also came months ahead of an expected papal visit to Canada this summer, where Francis is expected to meet with Indigenous people in the wake of a national reckoning around abuses at church-run residential schools after mass graves were uncovered in recent years. Czerny, who as a child moved with his family from Czechoslovakia to Montreal, said he hopes the papal trip, along with Francis' recent apologies at the Vatican, will bring about a new stage in the church's relationship with Indigenous people.

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Pope Francis meets with with Indigenous elders, knowledge keepers, abuse survivors and youth from Canada, along with representatives of Canada's Catholic bishops in the Vatican's Clementine Hall April 1. (CNS/Vatican Media)

"I believe there is a movement away from colonial and contemporary injustice and toward all being siblings in social friendship," the cardinal said.

The half-day online conference explored the Catholic Church's contribution to global sustainable development, both in a diplomatic role in world affairs and through the laity. The conversations among the panelists drew heavily from Francis' two encyclicals, "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home" and Fratelli Tutti.

Among the participants were Anne Leahy, a former Canadian ambassador to Russia and the Holy See, Archbishop Ivan Jurkovič, apostolic nuncio to Canada, Jenny Cafiso, executive director of Canadian Jesuits International and Villanova church historian Massimo Faggioli.

In 2015, all member countries of the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, consisting of 17 sustainable development goals to collectively reach within 15 years. Among them: eliminating poverty, promoting gender equality, reversing biodiversity loss and limiting climate change

But the world has made limited progress on those goals. The COVID-19 pandemic dealt the agenda a massive blow, with the World Bank estimating that millions of people have fallen back into poverty in the past two years. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has also drawn increased international attention, and in some cases, has resulted in a doubling down on fossil fuel use.

"Simply put, we are currently facing a crisis in global sustainable development," said Michael Manulak, an assistant professor in the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, which organized the conference along with the University of St. Michael's College in the University of Toronto.

Manulak added that the current world landscape, particularly on climate change, makes Laudato Si' more relevant today than when it was issued in 2015. Referencing the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he said it "paints a stark picture" of challenges facing countries this decade to rein in rising temperatures — what he called "a fundamental prerequisite to achieving sustainable development and integral human development on a global level."

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A bald eagle is pictured in a file photo perched in a tree in Baddeck, Nova Scotia. (CNS/Reuters/Carlo Allegri)

Delivering the opening keynote address, Czerny said at the core of integral human development is the recognition that fulfillment of each person's potential is a right for all people and a responsibility for all to uphold. He said the church in its diplomacy keeps focus on the goal of the common good, and when necessary, calls out obstacles to it.

The cardinal said that in Fratelli Tutti, Francis states that an understanding of liberty and equality must begin with "consciously cultivated" fraternity, and that the individual is best understood "within the fabric of a social 'we.' " Seeing fellow people as siblings goes beyond national borders, Czerny said, and the promotion of integral development is also a responsibility from nation to nation, especially for more advanced economies.

"If we do not recognize that every human being has a fundamental and inalienable right to his or her integral development, then 'there will be no future either for fraternity or for the survival of humanity,' " Czerny said, quoting Fratelli Tutti.

"Since there's only one common home, only one planet, then we can't just keep on growing, advancing, speeding faster," Czerny said. "And since there's only one human family created by God, we're all siblings and urgently need to treat each other as such."

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Snow in East Bolton, Quebec, covers the heart-shaped and frozen Baker Pond Dec. 24, 2021. (CNS/Reuters/Bernard Brault)

Séverine Deneulin, director of international development for the Laudato Si' Research Institute based at Oxford University's Campion Hall, said that a major contribution the church can make is in changing the current narrative around global sustainable development.

"Because as it stands, sustainable development encompasses green growth, net zero [greenhouse gas emissions], but we can continue with business as usual" rather than make changes to address problems with current development models, she said.

Deneulin pointed to problems arising from the growth of clean energy. The push for electric cars, for instance, has led to increased demand for rare earth minerals like copper, cobalt and lithium, which in turn has resulted in more mining — an industry whose history is rife with land disputes and human rights violations — and with it more instances of water scarcity and infringements on lands of Indigenous communities, particularly in Africa and the Global South.

"So this so-called green solution is not working, either, and it does create injustice," she said. "And the role of the church is precisely to highlight these injustices and these connections, too."

Beyond that, Deneulin said the church can not only propose a new narrative around development, one "of solidarity and personal and structural ecological conversion," but then must also promote it and live it out through the church's actions and institutions with programs like the Vatican's Laudato Si' Action Platform, an initiative launched by the integral human development dicastery.

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John Milloy speaks during a virtual conference April 26. (EarthBeat screenshot)

Should all Catholics in Canada not only call for action on climate change but also support the lifestyle changes and sacrifices it would require, it "would bring about a sea change," said John Milloy, director of the Centre for Public Ethics at Martin Luther University College and a senior staff member of former prime minister Jean Chrétien.

"As Laudato Si' reminds us … we can't leave [political issues like climate change] to the market to sort out, as Catholics we have a duty and a responsibility to get involved in a real and meaningful way to our political system," he said.

Panelists suggested that Canadian Catholics can engage the work of integral human development through organizations like Development and Peace, the Canadian church's Caritas affiliate, Jesuit Refugee Services and a Canadian-based chapter of the Laudato Si' Movement, which recently produced an eco-investment accelerator toolkit to examine redirecting finances from fossil fuels toward cleaner alternative energy sources.

The ongoing process of reconciliation and decolonization around the church's relationship with Canadian Indigenous communities also provides a path for Catholics and the local church to embrace integral ecology, the panelists said.

"It's only when their voice is at the table, that the change will happen," Cafiso of Canadian Jesuits International said.

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Jenny Cafiso speaks during a virtual conference April 26. (EarthBeat screenshot)

While the church has sought to play a leading diplomatic role, perhaps its greatest means to influence international discussions is by supporting grassroots social movements and the people and communities at the front lines of environmental destruction, panelists said. Several pointed out that many of the overseas mining companies are based in Canada, providing an opportunity for the nation's Catholics to press businesses to ensure human rights protections.

Asked how to ensure that new models of sustainable development don't become a new version of colonialism, Czerny said, "The only way is dialogue, dialogue, dialogue."

While the pandemic has led many people to prioritize individual liberties and push back against public health measures, several panelists agreed that church teaching on integral human development can play a key role in disrupting turns inward toward instead solidarity and working together to create a better world for everyone.

"If we do want to apply Catholic social teachings, we cannot do that in isolation. It's not a private conversion. It's a global action," Cafiso said.

Brian Roewe

Brian Roewe is NCR environment correspondent. His email address is broewe@ncronline.org. Follow him on Twitter at @brianroewe.

6 Ways the G20 Can Maximize the Role of Forests in Climate Action

April 27, 2022

 By Rizky Haryanto, Dean Affandi and Smita Tanaya 

Despite current targets and commitments to combat climate change, global temperatures look set to increase by 2.4°C by 2100 — way above the Paris Agreement target. Climate action has never been more urgent, and in light of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, a sustainable, inclusive and resilient recovery is also essential.

Natural forests have an important part to play as, when conserved, they contribute significantly to carbon removal; globally, forests represent around 25% of planned emissions reductions by 2030. Also, healthy forests provide food and livelihoods for 1.6 billion people — including around 400 million people who live within 1 kilometer of a forest in G20 Member States alone*. And to prevent future pandemics it’s important that forests remain healthy, as studies show that deforestation can lead to the spread of zoonotic diseases.

The G20 has a strategic role in conserving forests. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation has stated that eight G20 members are among the top 10 countries with the largest forest area. In 2021, the G20 also declared a commitment to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.

However, challenges of deforestation and the disconnect between food policy and forest conservation remain. In Brazil, for example, forest conversion for agricultural commodities is a key driver of forest loss, while in Mexico, agriculture and livestock account for 80% of deforestation. In Indonesia, a study has shown that oil palm plantation and small-scale agriculture accounts for up to 40% of deforestation.

The 2021 Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, signed by 17 G20 countries at COP26, demonstrates a commitment to halt and reverse forest loss, promoting food security while conserving forests. But there is still some way to go for the G20 to strengthen this commitment. The last two G20 declarations in Rome (2021) and Riyadh (2020) did not explicitly mention the word “forest.” The upcoming G20 Summit in Indonesia, in October 2022, provides an opportunity to enhance G20 commitment to fully maximize the potential of forests for climate mitigation, food security and resilient pandemic recovery.

A bird's eye view of the stark contrast between the forest and agricultural landscapes near Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil. Photo by Kate Evans/CIFOR

How the G20 Can Give Forests a Boost

To fully realize the role of forests as nature-based solutions for climate mitigation, food security and resilient pandemic recovery, G20 leaders should adopt these six measures:

1. Encourage legal commitment to minimize deforestation of natural forests.

The G20 should promote the need for stronger legal measures and encourage the streamlining of policies and actions on forest use and protection to curb deforestation. For example, in Argentina — despite having lost 10% of its Gran Chaco forest area over the last 20 years, it still plans to increase the number of cattle production up to 700,000 in the next decade.

In Indonesia, the recent establishment of the Job Creation Law raised questions on the rollback of environmental protections which may harm forests. And its recent Food Estate plan, aimed to secure food supplies, could put 1.5 million hectares of natural forests at risk of deforestation. The law, and plan, emerged despite Indonesia’s acclaimed forest moratorium policy in reducing deforestation to the lowest in five years in 2020. The recently increasing price of crude palm oil may further put forest conservation at risk in Indonesia.

2. Reiterate the goal to collectively plant 1 trillion trees by 2030.

This point was part of the G20 Rome Declaration, and its importance in creating new carbon sinks must be re-emphasized to improve both forest increase and governance. The G20 commitment to restoration is aligned to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, and as such some G20 countries have been working on major restoration activities: Indonesia has committed 600,000 hectares of mangrove forest restoration, South Africa has aimed to plant 3.6 million hectares of forest and land areas since 2017, and China has plans for 30% forest coverage of land by 2050. The G20’s collective restoration target will strengthen the global pursuit of trees and forests as nature-based solutions for climate change.

3. Promote food system transformation that aligns with social and environmental safeguards in association with forest ecosystems.

The High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition in 2017 suggested recognizing nuanced, multiple pathways linking forest conservation and food security — including the importance of forest ecosystem services and subsistence for local communities. There are emerging practices and efforts within G20 countries in this area, which must be supported further through relevant policies.

In Indonesia, for instance, some local communities collect fruit and sweet potatoes from forests as alternative source of food, and adopt agroforestry systems to reduce soil erosion. Meanwhile, initiatives such as the Food and Land Use Coalition develop science-based solutions and policy dialogue to encourage food system reform to tackle climate and poverty challenges — including in G20 countries such as Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom and India.

Mangrove area in Sumbawa, Indonesia. Creating new carbon sinks is essential to improve both forest increase and governance, and Indonesia has committed 600,000 hectares of mangrove forest restoration. 

Photo by Donny Iqbal/CIFOR-ICRAF

4. Ensure the rights and participation of Indigenous peoples and local communities within forest ecosystems.

Indigenous and local communities help de-escalate climate change and biodiversity loss. Their role and importance in natural resources, including forest, management are recognized in several platforms, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature nature-based solutions principle.

Indigenous peoples and local communities’ rights can be safeguarded by allocating forest area permits for conservation and sustainable use, and implementing a robust legal framework to protect Indigenous environmental rights.

5. Improve values and market demand of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) and services.

In general, the potential of NTFPs remains largely untapped, hence its contribution to incomes has been limited. This is unfortunate because NTFPs are key to supporting food security and rural livelihoods in low- and middle-income countries.

One study in Indonesia shows NTFPs account for as much as 53% of the income of communities around the forest. The G20 could therefore promote joint measures to enhance NTFPs value chain and market demand, while also ensuring mechanisms for sustainable product harvesting to avoid over exploitation. This would give much needed support — not just for the preservation of natural resources but also in promoting inclusive economic growth by reducing inequalities in urban/rural areas, and rich/poor countries.

6. Establish policy for nature-based carbon credits that upholds environmental and social safeguards.

The G20 includes several countries with strong nature-based credits potential from forests — such as Indonesia, Brazil and India — as well as industrialized countries that may use nature-based credits for carbon offsets. These credits have only been recently included in compliance carbon markets, where the governing rules remain uncertain.

In line with the emerging needs for high-quality nature-based credits, it's important to have a policy that encourages the creation of carbon credits from forests in G20 countries that preserves biodiversity, provides equitable socio-economic benefits to local communities, and ensures environmental integrity (such as addressing the issues of double counting, among others).

How Indonesia Can Lead by Example in the G20 Presidency

During Indonesia’s G20 Presidency in 2022, it must show how to advance forest-based climate actions. This has already started through discourse and rhetoric: At the 2021 G20 Summit, Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo stated his intention for the G20 to lead the world in tackling climate change, and emphasized the country’s strategic position given one of its largest assets in the world are tropical forests.

This has become more relevant since the release of 2022 IPCC Climate Change Mitigation Report, which highlights that holding global temperature to 1.5 degrees C is still possible, but only if we urgently act now.

Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia, arriving to COP26 World Leaders Summit in Glasgow, 2021.

 Photo by Doug Peters/ UK Government

More than ever, these words must be turned into action. To lead by example, Indonesia must:Double down on its ambition to halt and reverse the deforestation of natural forests. Indonesia’s step in permanently extending permit moratorium policy in primary forests and peatlands should be applauded. To enhance this ambition, the country can consider expanding the moratorium to include secondary natural forests and mangroves — both of which can contribute toward emissions reductions and community livelihoods.

Accelerate the provision of Social Forestry permit provision to local communities. Until 2021, the provision only reached up to 40% of the 12.7 million hectare target by 2024 in Indonesia. A proactive role to fill the provision gap is needed. Indonesia must mobilize more resources to work with local forest communities in obtaining the permit. Further, for those who have obtained this permit, Indonesia must incentivize communities and build their capacity to pursue sustainable livelihood options and safeguard the forests.
Pursue food production systems that preserve forest ecosystems. Indonesia needs to find alternative ways of producing food without causing land conversion. One way to achieve this is by putting more emphasis on the improvement of the production and consumption of local food. Transforming our diet to be focused on consuming locally has the potential to reduce GHG emissions, reduce food loss during transportation, and help to shorten the food-supply chain. Eating locally also means diversifying our food sources, for example consuming forest-based food while at the same time promoting the protection and restoration of the sustainable use of forest ecosystems.

Stimulate and incentivize non-wood products and services from Indonesia’s natural forests. Indonesia should rally other members of G20 by championing four cross-cutting enablers/accelerators: technology, innovation, data and governance in all programmatic interventions to accelerate impact while minimizing trade-offs. This is necessary to encourage a strategic and systems-oriented approach to generate sustainable impacts in the future.

Set up the regulatory framework to ensure high-quality nature-based credits. Being regarded as a "carbon superpower" — thanks to their forests, peatlands and mangroves, among others — Indonesia could set the tone of what defines high-quality nature-based credits in practice. To start, Indonesia should develop a robust framework on credit verification and validation, safeguarding environmental and community benefits, and aligning the crediting mechanism with ambitious emissions reduction targets. The framework development should ensure effective participation from targeted companies, local forest communities, NGOs and other entities. Indonesia should also scale up the lessons learned from local-level carbon credit projects.

Looking ahead, G20 leaders must strengthen their commitment and actions to reverse and halt deforestation and promote truly environmentally sustainable forest-based food resilience and recovery. Indonesia, hosting the G20 in 2022, should use this moment of leadership to enhance G20 commitment on forest conservation and restoration, while also leading by example through strengthening its own forest governance.

ENDNOTE:

*Approximation provided excludes the European Union.

 Towards a new Minimum Wage Policy in Germany and Europe

:WSI MINIMUM WAGE REPORT 2022

The past year has seen a much higher political pro file for the issue of minimum wages, not only in Germany, which has seen fresh initiatives to tackle low pay, but also in those many other countries in Europe that have embarked on substantial and sus tained increases in statutory minimum wages. One key benchmark in determining what should count as an adequate minimum wage is the threshold of 60% of the median wage, a ratio that has also played a role in the European Commission`s pro posals for an EU-level policy on minimum wages. This year`s WSI Minimum Wage Report highlights the feasibility of achieving minimum wages that meet this criterion, given the political will. And with an increase to €12 per hour planned for autumn 2022, Germany might now find itself promoted from laggard to minimum wage trailblazer.

Lübker, Malte; Schulten, Thorsten: WSI Minimum Wage Report 2022
WSI Report, Düsseldorf, 20 Seiten

SOCIAL DEMOCRATS

A citizens’ Europe?

The Conference on the Future of Europe could lead to a new European constitution.

27th April 2022

Citizens’ panel two in Florence—’raising popular consciousness about the complexity of social reality and its governance’

During the last decade, European Union affairs have become significantly more politicised, on issues such as trade and austerity, the movement of people and climate change. To those have recently been added healthcare, due to the Covid-19 crisis, and lately defence and security, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

EU policy-making traditionally favoured institutionalised, Brussels-based, peak associations and umbrella organisations, which aggregated diverse interests. This in turn fostered tensions with grassroots groups within member states.

The Conference on the Future of Europe—whose final plenary is scheduled for the end of this week—represents an attempt to move away from the conventional, corporatist model towards ‘deliberative’ and ‘citizen-led’ policy-making. This has been evidenced through an online platform established to collect ideas from any European and especially the innovative European Citizens’ Panels. For the first time, individuals randomly selected from every corner of the continent have participated in formal transnational dialogues to engender recommendations for a better union.

This transition offers opportunities for the democratisation of the EU but it also carries risks: it is crucial to link the micro-exercises of the panels with the macro-level of political debates, within member states and across Europe. Then the politicisation of EU policies, resonating beyond the usual suspects within the ‘Brussels bubble’, would suggest the normalisation of the union as a public sphere—in which the dominant arguments are based on contestation of what the EU does, rather than nationalist Euroscepticism. It thus remains relevant to engage traditional interlocutors, such as parliaments, political parties, trade unions and civil society, at EU and national levels, with the constitutionalisation of the union on the horizon.

Two precedents

The Conference on the Future of Europe evokes two precedents. The first was the Conference of Messina in June 1955, considered a turning-point in the relaunch of European integration. Despite the successes of the 1951 Treaty of Paris establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, the failure of the European Defence Community and of the European Political Community had paralysed the integration process. At Italy’s initiative, the foreign ministers of the six founding member states gathered in Messina to find a way to move forward.

The governments agreed on the setting up of a common European market allied to the expansion of trade and the movement of persons (Italy had a substantial labour surplus), as well as more and cheaper energy. Messina initiated a process which, through an innovative institutional setup, centred on a committee of experts acting under a ministerial mandate. The foundational Treaty of Rome followed in 1957.

The second precedent was the Convention on the Future of Europe. This was convened at a critical juncture between 2001 and 2003—with EU enlargement to the east imminent, stemming from the collapse of the Soviet sphere and the end of the cold war, amid a fraught geopolitical environment after the ‘9/11’ attacks in the United States and the start of the controversial ‘war on terror’.

The convention was tasked by the European Council to ‘resolve three basic challenges: how to bring citizens, and primarily the young, closer to the European design and the European institutions, how to organise politics and the European political area in an enlarged Union and how to develop the Union into a stabilising factor and model in the new, multipolar world’. It drafted a treaty establishing a European constitution, though this was eventually rejected in referenda in France and the Netherlands. It was unclear, however, whether these votes were against Europe per se or its then neoliberal colouring and the substance was preserved in the conventional intergovernmental Treaty of Lisbon of 2007.

Both initiatives were taken at key moments in the process of European integration. Both entailed original institutional designs, conceiving new methods to reform the EU not foreseen in the treaties. Both proved valuable in relaunching the European project.

Now a new constitutional process is due, as urged in recommendation 35 from citizens’ panel two, on European democracy, in the Florence session of the Conference on the Future of Europe: ‘We recommend that the EU reopens the discussion about the constitution of Europe with a view to creating a constitution informed by the citizens of the EU. Citizens should be able to vote in the creation of such a constitution.’

Deliberative democracy

Europe can reinvent democracy for the 21st century, also capitalising on the pluralistic possibilities of the digital age. It is imperative, however, to combat the ‘dark side’ of online life, of organised misinformation and other modes of manipulation which corrode the European public sphere.

Deliberative democracy can help with that, as the European citizens’ panels have once again demonstrated, raising popular consciousness about the complexity of social reality and its governance. Participatory and deliberative democracy should not be considered as replacements for representative democracy but as an integration of it: institutions cannot really be renewed without the involvement of citizens. A permanent European citizens’ assembly would be a step towards a fully-fledged European deliberative democracy. It should become a new EU institution and part of union law-making.

Reforming the EU political system is a burning issue, with the need to adopt qualified majority voting as the ordinary procedure top of the agenda. The European Parliament should be granted more powers, including to initiate legislation (currently confined to the European Commission) as well as on the budget and taxation. More weight should be given to it and to national parliaments, at the expense of the Council of the EU. National parliaments should play a role in EU accountability, to bring European issues into national political debates and encourage parties and parliamentarians to pay more attention to them.

The Spitzenkandidaten approach to appointing the commission president, which gives a role to EU citizens in choosing the executive power, should be formally adopted and implemented, together with transnational party lists in elections to the parliament. Currently the lead candidates are chosen by national parties, but potential candidates should be required to appeal to European as well as national constituencies.

Transnational political participation should be stimulated by encouraging activism on EU policies, allied to a diminished focus on expert-oriented EU interest-group representation.

The European Citizens’ Initiative should be ascribed greater policy impact, with meaningful follow-up required. Pan-European referenda should be considered, not only for constitutional change but also in connection with the ECI and transnational citizens’ assemblies.

The Conference on the Future of Europe has been an educative experiment in democratic citizen engagement at the continental scale. Continuing this experiment could accelerate transnational civic activism and the building of new types of EU institution, including permanent mechanisms of deliberative and participatory democracy. This process should be sustained—developing at least the citizens’ panels experiment—until the 2024 European election.
Possible outcome

This process would strengthen, rather than undermine, the representative institutions. It could pave the way, once the new European Parliament is elected, for the latter to operate as a constitutional assembly. This would complement the convention addressing changes to the treaties which a number of members of the parliament, some governments and many non-governmental organisations are seeing as the possible outcome of the Conference on the Future of Europe, activating article 48 of the Treaty on European Union.

In their coalition deal of last November, the current German government partners declared that the conference ‘should lead to a constitutional convention and the further development of a federal European state’. Citizens Take Over Europe, a coalition of more than 50 civil-society organizations, proposes that such a convention should be organised in the most participatory and inclusive manner, drawing on experiences of citizen involvement in Iceland, Ireland, Romania and Chile.

Such a constitutional path, if initiated, would prove that the approval in December 2020 by the European Council of the NextGenerationEU recovery fund, financed by borrowing on behalf of the union as a whole, was indeed a ‘Hamiltonian moment’ for the EU. Such measures should be recognised as permanent and not provisional, integrated into a new, de facto federal, institutional framework.

The ideology of neoliberalism was sustained through a remote, technocratic discourse. Transnational activism and a bridging of EU and national politics offer a route to bring progressive ideals into the union. The democratic future of our continent lies here—moving from ‘policy without politics’ to policy with politics, through citizens’ protagonism.

This article is an updated synthesis of the paper ‘Citizens’ Europe: an institutional turn for an ever-democratic union?’, published by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies



MICHELE FIORILLO
Michele Fiorillo is a political philosopher whose research focuses on the history of ideas, theories of democracy and European integration. He was co-initiator of CIVICO Europa and of Citizens Take Over Europe, a transnational coalition of more than 50 NGOs.

SEAMUS MONTGOMERY
Seamus is a political anthropologist based in the UK whose work has been primarily with and about EU civil servants. He is currently a postdoctoral affiliate and teaching assistant at the University of Oxford.


FABIO DI NUNNO
Fabio Di Nunno is a teaching assistant at the University of International Studies of Rome (UNINT), a journalist at Città Nuova and contributor to the Annali of the Italian Institute for Historical Studies.



ALVARO OLEART
Alvaro Oleart is a postdoctoral researcher at Studio Europa Maastricht and the Department of Political Science of Maastricht University. He is the author of Framing TTIP in the European Public Spheres: Towards an Empowering Dissensus for EU Integration, published in the Palgrave series of European political sociology.


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Rocket Lab successfully catches Electron booster with helicopter

ORLANDO, Fla., May 2 (UPI) -- Rocket Lab successfully launched and caught an Electron booster with a helicopter for the first time on Monday.

"Helicopter catch!" Rocket Lab tweeted following the successful mission, called "There and back again."

Following the successful catch, the company also conducted its first booster offloading, with the aircraft dropping the rocket on to a waiting ship.

Monday's liftoff was placed on hold about 12 minutes ahead of the scheduled launch but was completed at around 6:50 p.m. EDT from Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand.

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Data collected from both the catching and then offloading the booster onto the recovery ship will be used to streamline the process going forward.

Rocket Lab said the Electron booster stage was in "great condition" after splashdown, adding the pilot noticed different load characteristics than in previous testing during the offloading.

The booster will be further assessed to determine whether it can be launched again.

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Unfavorable conditions forced the company to delay the launch several days, originally pushing it to Friday, then postponing to Sunday before finally being able to launch Monday.

"We don't usually give mother nature quite so much power over launch timing, but for our first helicopter catch attempt we want to line up the best possible conditions to give us the highest chance of a successful catch. In time, we'll narrow those bounds," the company said after first pushing the launch to Friday.

"After a busy week of capture testing, and while we wait for weather to improve, we're taking an additional day for final helicopter and recovery system optimization ahead of our first mid-air capture attempt," the company said Saturday on Twitter.




Rocket Lab used a Sikorsky S-92 helicopter to snag the booster as it fell from the sky.

"We've carried out successful helicopter flights with replica stages, as well as conducted extensive parachute tests. Now it's time to put everything together," Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck told UPI last week.

Engineers have spent the past two years working to make the Electron booster reusable, and recently beefed up the rocket's thermal protection system -- as seen by a new red stripe on the rocket -- which helped it hold up during re-entry and facilitate the catch.

Beck said the company not only beefed up the thermal protection system, but also installed parachutes on the rocket to help slow it down as it fell to Earth to help the helicopter grab the rocket.

"We're excited about this new era of reusability," Beck said.

Chinese scientist and team strike new path to explain how giant planets found their orbit

Mechanism proposed by Zhejiang University scientist Liu Beibei and team in Nature journal may be ‘one of the missing links in solar system history’, says reviewer

New model explains why the Earth’s formation was not affected by the migration of giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune billions of years ago, says Liu

Ling Xin in Beijing

A paper published this week in Nature journal challenges the theory of how the giant planets in the solar system migrated to their present-day orbits. Photo: Shutterstock

An international team of researchers has challenged the mainstream theory of when and how the giant planets in the solar system migrated to their present-day orbits.

In a paper published in Nature on Wednesday, they proposed a new theory that could dramatically move the timeline to as early as 5 million years after the solar system was born, instead of hundreds of millions of years afterwards.

“The proposed mechanism may be one of the missing links in solar system history,” one of the paper’s reviewers wrote.



New giant-planet study better explains the formation of our galaxy, says lead author

The story of our solar system started 4.6 billion years ago when a gigantic molecular cloud contracted under its own gravity. The nascent sun rose from the hot, dense centre, while planets took shape around it in a swirling disk made of gas and dust particles.

Among the different types of planets that later formed, “the giant planets are so massive that they had huge impacts on the terrestrial planets and the evolution of the solar system itself,” said the paper’s lead author Liu Beibei from Zhejiang University in eastern China.

It is believed that as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune grew larger, they migrated towards the sun and reached a stable state where their orbits were much closer to the sun and to each other than they are today. This difference led scientists to look for possible mechanisms that disrupted the stability and brought the planets to their current positions.

The most popular theory, called the Nice model, posits that the instability occurred because of interactions between the giant planets and smaller solid objects beyond Neptune’s orbit, and that the process took a few hundred million years to complete.

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The Nice model was powerful enough to explain a range of observed facts, such as the existence of the Kuiper belt, but there was increasing debate regarding one of its major motivations – a hypothetical event called the Late Heavy Bombardment, said Man Hoi Lee from the University of Hong Kong.

Using theoretical analyses and numerical simulations, Liu and his colleagues from Europe and the US found the instability could have happened much earlier as a result of the gas disk dispersing.

“Picture the early sun as an enormous hair dryer that continued to blow away gas around it,” Liu said. As the disk evaporated from inside out, its inner edge swept across and stirred up each planet’s orbit in turn, until the outward migration of Saturn triggered the instability.

The new model was not only consistent with recent findings about the Late Heavy Bombardment, but better explained why the Earth’s formation was not affected by the migration of the giant planets, he said.

Proving any of the models would be difficult, since the evolution of the solar system cannot be directly observed. Just as the Nice model was modified after its conception, the new model also had to be examined by follow-up studies, said Masahiro Ogihara, a TD Lee Fellow at the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

For instance, it would be useful to check whether the distribution of the so-called Super Earth exoplanet – a planet that orbits a star outside the solar system – was consistent with the new model, Ogihara said.

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Lee said he would be interested to see if the new model could produce the observed spin axis tilts of Jupiter and Saturn, a subject he has investigated intensively.

“For me, the most challenging part of this study is to learn to think beyond what’s been widely accepted,” Liu said. He earned his PhD from the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University in 2015 and held postdoctoral positions in the Netherlands and Sweden before joining Zhejiang University.



Ling Xin is a science journalist based in Beijing. She mainly covers physics, astronomy and space. Her writing has appeared in Science, Scientific American, MIT Technology Review and other English and Chinese outlets. She was a visiting journalist at Science magazine in Washington, and has a master's degree in journalism from Ohio University.